Dealing with harassment?

[Deleted]

Hey all. So I made an instagram account a few days ago and posted some pictures of my theta-delta henna and pawprint henna I have done.
Later I found a very sad looking user who dedicated their account to doing nothing but posting rude comments about people's artwork, posts, opinions, etc. Seemed very... tumblrina-y, using transphobic and homophobic everywhere, putting flowers and smilies next to very rude things, the works.
I scrolled down and found one of my posts, with a long rant about how therians are not real and how it's stupid and it's all for attention and angst emo teenagers and how species dysphoria is offensive and not real but gender is, etc.
I wasn't very bothered, as everything they post is rather rude and sad. What I am bothered by is potential harassers, since they didn't censor my name. I tried reporting the post for harassment and am waiting on a response.
Otherwise, what should I do? Just block them and shrug it off? I just don't want people to start spamming my posts with negative things just because of that. I've never really experienced anything like this, partially because I've never posted things about therianthropy or otherkinity on social media before. I just thought I'd share my artwork.
I know I should expect things like this considering the bad rap. Should I try explaining it to them or is it a waste of time? I just don't want any drama.

[Deleted]

Hey @shifter. 

I've experienced this sort of thing, going way back to the days in which LiveJournal was the end-all-be-all of social networking. I've come to the point at which I simply don't use social media much at all. When I do, I avoid hot topics that could cause something like this to happen. Unfortunately, with the Internet becoming more and more accessible, there will be more and more folks on it who are only there to make others feel as crappy as they do. Since there's no way to avoid it, I just hide.

I know that this may not be very helpful. I have just accepted that I cannot control other people. I'm only able to control myself. It's the same for everyone. So, while I know it may be tempting to open a dialogue with this person, I would strongly caution against it. There's a good chance that this person is doing these things for the sole purpose of starting an argument. I would wager that there is no chance of educating them or reasoning with them. They've likely already made their mind up about everything, or they may not even truly care; they may be there simply to troll anything and everything. I wouldn't feed into their ego by dignifying their nonsense with a response.

I wish I had something more encouraging to say, but this is all I can offer. The Internet is great at allowing us to come together, but it's also really great at tearing people apart, too. :<

[Deleted]

What Shoe said is pretty much true for myself. I avoid social media for anything I enjoy doing or am a part of. Therianthropy, video games, etc. I leave out of any social media accounts significantly because I don't want to deal with the harassment. When it comes down to it, people are going to spout off hate no matter what you do. The best you can do is what you've already done, report them for harassment and move along.

It should probably also be said that many individuals in these situations only really see the "fluff" of the community, form bad opinions of them, and those with very few filters (as this individual clearly lacks) will make harassing posts like the one you got. The best thing you can do is ignore it, as people like that are well beyond the point of no return and are either trolls or truly ignorant jerks.

[Deleted]

Thank you guys. I don't actually post much stuff about it which is why I was surprised- just the henna. I decided to block them. It's weird, up until now I refused to use anything but Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family and within two days of joining Insta I get harassed by a Tumblrina with an extreme victim complex bent on calling out any opinion they disagree with. They even made a post making fun of someone who asked them why they care so much about the opinions of others.

To be fair to them, most Instagram therians and otherkin do seem extremely fluffy.

[KitKatPurrpurr]

On Instagram you'll find that **** happens. I posted a selfie of myself (a normal one with a filter on it, and it wasn't a tail selfie because I don't do that kind of stuff, nor own a tail lol), and I got someone who said something along the lines of "all otherkin looking like f*****s (gay slur)" which amused me because I'm bisexual, not gay, but yeah lol. Blocked em and was done.

But yeah, most IG Therians ands Otherkin are pretty fluffy. Blood/moon/fur/claw named packs everywhere and scene scene scene kids with tails in the tags GALORE. Very different from forums anyway. But a word of caution: DON'T PISS THEM OFF. I got harassed by 8 of em (I counted) when pointing out their BS on Tumblr (I wasn't even mean, all I said was "if you're a Therian on IG wanting to use the therianthropy tag: don't") with a screencap of the tag, which happened to contain a pic that belonged to someone who didn't like what I said, they @ me and then I had 8 people jumping on me, even on unrelated pictures, to try and ruin my day. And it did. It was during an 8 hour shift at work. Ugh.

[meoquanee]

Yeah, there was this guy and he hated therians because "they did something bad to him". The "bad thing" changed all the time and ranged from stealing from his shop, to burning down his house and he posted death threats on his account. I got every version of his accounts deleted and he is now wiped off of the Instagram map so yeah, stuff happens and you have to deal with it, but it's no reason to hide your therianthropy.

[Deleted]

I usually just ignore them and block them or just avoid social media all together but block all the haters and you should be good if not then just ignore them and back up all the Therians out there which might one day slightly prevent so many haters of Therians/Otherkin